New Year’s Resolutions

The year has come to an end, as is inevitable in this life. And as usual, my newsfeed and social media is bombarded with annual summaries and titles of, “Best (adjective) of 2015” and everyone posting about what they’re plans are for this year or showing gratitude for the year before. Everyone suddenly has their nostalgia goggles on and go about how terrible/great the year was for them.

And here I am, bitter about how crappy my year was.

There are two kinds of people that come popping up between Christmas and January 1st: the one’s that loved their last year or the ones that despised it. I am in the latter category. I mean, yeah, my year wasn’t terrible, seeing as I’m typing this through a laptop under a roof that also homes a full fridge and electricity. But that doesn’t mean it was great either.

It’s been one year since graduating from college, and what have I done with that? Got a job at Wal-mart. That’s just great. So much excitement and joy there. Have I applied anywhere else? No, because I am a lazy coward. Have I accomplished anything amazing and actually worthwhile? Nope. Have I gotten better health-wise? No, because I still wake up feeling like crap every day. My health is still crap, my degree is wasting away with each new day, and I am nowhere closer to my overall goal. The so-called dream job or life, if one is to put a name to it.

My health is still crap, my degree is wasting away with each new day, and I am nowhere closer to my overall goal. The so-called dream job or life, if one is to put a name to it. Why? Oh, because I am an overall lazy coward that is more of a dreamer than a doer. What does this world like? Doers. What am I? Not that by any means.

So, what does one do about this situation, where she knows fully well that being a dreamer is going to get her nowhere in life? Simple: Get off her butt and start changing it. Preferably for the better. And, as usual, what better way to start that than with New Year Resolutions? You know, like everyone else tends to do at this time?

Of course, I’m putting the general resolutions here, so that I have proof of what I had set out to do. So when I forget or decide to be really lazy, I can look at this post and go, “Oh yeah. I made a commitment and put it on the internet. I better make do and prove it true, or else become a liar.” And maybe it will motivate me to actually do something productive.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Goal One: Actually Blog and Blog Well

If you are reading this, you know as well as I do that this blog has been in an odd, comatose state for months. Sometimes there was a post, but there are lots of long gaps between the posts. I had planned to make this blog more active and to write a post every day. But, obviously, that didn’t work. As usual, I got lazy and bored and stopped because of it. I guess I can make the excuse that my health is in shambles, but no one outside immediate family is going to care. And besides, the excuse shows just what I get for making them. As in, I have no success to live up to thanks to my excuses.

So, the obvious solution to this problem is to post more and make actual efforts to blog. I think I’ll start with just one post a week. That seems to be the bare minimum and doable. And if and when I feel better about posting, it will increase and there will be pages of posts to sift through on this blog.

Goal Two: Use My Social Media More

So, the blog is not the only thing that I grew bored of and gave up on. I got bored of Tumblr, I didn’t really care about Twitter, and Facebook is irritating at this point. (seriously, what is it about winter and the holidays that screams “engagement season?” Is the cold weather really romantic or something? Ugh, couples)Pinterest lost its appeal long ago, Instagram is useless outside of cat pictures, and Goodreads has only been good for the reading challenge. Which is odd, since I’m a member of five groups on Goodreads, but I don’t participate at all. Aren’t I lame?

The lack of me trying to be more active on social media bothers me for one reason: I have a minor in digital media. I took college-level courses on all of this crap, and here I am tossing all of that education away? Because I just happen to get bored every now and then? Unacceptable.

Obviously, the solutions to this dilemma is to interact more on all of these accounts. Like, participating in discussions and challenges on Goodreads and Tumblr, posting more on Instagram and Twitter. Stop being an observer and actually connect with people as intended.

Goal Three: Read More “Adult” Books

So, I love Young Adult novels. I have since I was a young adult myself. Over half of my bookshelf is filled with novels from that genre. Which is not a bad thing. However, I am not a young adult anymore. I need to broaden my horizons and go a little out of my reading comfort zone. It’s necessary, because I can’t read Young Adult books for all eternity. That’s the equivalent to only reading classics for all eternity, and that’s so narrow-minded and pretentious.

Seems like all these solutions are obvious. I just have to stop shopping at the teen section at a Barnes and Noble and find books in the adult section that will (hopefully) interest me. Maybe I’ll ask some of my bookish friends for recommendations outside of the big names like Stephen King and John Grisham.

Goal Four: Read A Classic Novel

Another goal that involves broadening my reading horizon. I’ve read a classic a year for the past two years, so this goal seems to be the easiest to complete. I already have classics downloaded to my Kindle. I just have to choose one and start reading it, bit by bit.

Goal Five: Read Less Manga

As I said, over half of my bookshelf is full of Young Adult books. The other half is full of manga. That’s what I mostly read for 2015. I read many manga series, added them to my Goodreads challenge, and was able to surpass my goal. And, for some reason, it felt like I was cheating, adding fifteen books from a manga series and saying that I read a lot and all. I mean, I can say I read one hundred manga books, and it could be only three series. I mean, Naruto is almost three-fourths of one hundred. How diverse can someone say they are when they only read one series in the year? I’ve used manga as a quick way to make my reading challenge go up, and that’s not fair to the story itself. And besides, as I said before, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to diversify reading habits.

This means that I should delete my apps that let me read manga scans and stop shopping for manga. And should stay away from manga scan sites like mangareader.net and mangafox.com. (technically I shouldn’t be at those sites at all, but I digress)

And then there are the obvious goals like good health, figuring 0ut how to cope with my worsening allergies, writing, job searching, and so on. But if I were to list them right now, I’m sure we’d be here until next year.

So, these are all my social and reading goals for 2016. Will I accomplish any of them, or do what everyone else does and let them fade away until crippling disappointment and self-loathing show up later? I guess we’ll find out at the end of the year.